Bat of Kirkwall
by Xeno92
Summary: ...This is NOT the Thedas you know... Read and Review


Bat of Kirkwall

This is NOT the Thedas you know.

Chapter 1: Legend

What makes a legend? The answer is simple although few truly know it.

Katrina Wayne did not. At eight years old she knew very little of the world around her or its dynamics.

Her parents didn't know either, but they came pretty close to finding out. Philanthropy among nobles was a rarity but the Wayne's made a point of giving to those less fortunate and those they helped always remembered their kindness.

One night after visiting friends, the three of them walked back home. Katrina couldn't wait to get home and sit in front of the fire. It was absolutely freezing in Kirkwall during winter time. Her mother and father were talking, discussing the Elven Alienage and how they could donate money to improve the area. All three were so preoccupied with their own agendas that they did not notice the figures following them.

They were almost at their Manor's entrance when a lone figure blocked their path. Katrina was scared immediately. She took a few steps back and threw her arms around her mother, holding her tightly. That's when they noticed the other figures behind them. They were boxed in with nowhere to go. When the man at the font demanded their coin, her father threw the small pouch at the man's feet as reply. The next request was for the jewellery her mother was wearing. Her mother removed everything but the ring on her finger, and threw them at the man's feet as reply.

"Good. Thank you. One more thing though."

Those words would forever more haunt Katrina. The air cracked and both her parents screamed. Katrina looked on as her parents, the ones who had loved and raised her, were lifted into the air by an unseen force. She closed her eyes as blood started flowing from their eyes, mouths and noses. The sickening sound of bones snapping filled the air and replaced screams and an instant later it was over.

Katrina's eyes opened and she looked around her: To her left was her mother, face down and lifeless. To her right her father broken and dead. The little girl fell to her knees.

The figure who had demanded their belongings stepped forward and looked at her, his face illuminated for the first time by the moonlight and the lit torches around him. Two slashes on both his cheeks that gave him the appearance of a man grinning.

From somewhere in the distance someone yelled "Templars"! The group fled but the grinning man stayed a moment longer. Looking the traumatized Katrina in the eyes he spoke softly: "See you around kid."

And just like the others he disappeared. Templars and Guardsman found Katrina kneeling between her parent's lifeless bodies.

Knight Captain Meredith scooped the young girl up into her arms and comforted her.

"We'll find them. It's going to be okay dear. We will find them."

But Katrina's eyes were fixed on the full moon high above them in the sky. As she watched, one single bat flew through the night sky, a witness to the atrocity that had just occurred. For a second Katrina could have sworn the bat looked right at her. Right into her soul…and gave her purpose. Part of Katrina Wayne died that night with her parent on the cold stone floor of Hightown.

But something else was born.

Years of hand to hand fighting, swordplay, archery and stealth combat followed in secret. She travelled all over Thedas and studied

alongside scholars to understand the laws of the human mind and the world, both magical and not. At fifteen she had developed the fighting skills of a hardened warrior and wit, comparable to few but the greatest minds. But still she kept on training.

Thirteen years had passed since that horrific night. Thirteen years of gruelling training and travel. Thirteen years of preparation. Now, standing at the very top of the Kirkwall Chantry she felt alive for the first time since that night. She was dressed in custom built armour, both a mix of blackened plate and mail. On her chest an emblem representing the very bat that had witnessed the events all those years ago was engraved and dyed red. All this was shrouded from sight by a dark red cape hanging from her shoulders. She looked out over Kirkwall and could feel the city drowning in the very filth it had spawned. Something had to be done. Someone had to save things. Katrina Wayne couldn't.

She reached back and pulled a black cowl over her face hiding her identity, becoming something else entirely. Katrina Wayne couldn't save Kirkwall. But the symbol she had become could.

The Bat could.

Taking a deep breath she leapt off the Chantry roof and her cape spread like the great wings of a bat gliding through the air hunting its prey. She had started something with those steps and that leap, something much greater than she had hoped or for the moment realized. Something that would eventually change everything the world knew as truth.

That night many claimed to see a winged creature in the city. Templars increased patrols the following nights fearing it to be some sort of Abomination but found nothing. Several Guardsmen sighted the creature attacking highwaymen days later but when they approached, it disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving the dead highwaymen behind. All over Kirkwall people started talking about the savage creature attacking criminals in the dead of night. The nobles, including Katrina (intentionally of course), wrote the tales off as nothing more than a mere myth. Lower classes believed the Bat to be some dark guardian. And of course criminals feared it every night a bit more.

What makes a legend? The answer is simple.

Sacrifice.


End file.
